The accountant for med spas and aesthetics practices.

Five things, every month: record prepaid packages, memberships and gift cards as liabilities and release them to revenue as treatments are delivered; track injectables and retail as inventory so cost of goods sold follows the treatment, not the purchase order; accrue provider commissions from the production report so provider cost lands in the same month as the revenue; separate taxable retail from non-taxable treatments for sales tax; and, where the practice runs an MSO alongside a professional entity, keep two sets of books with a documented management fee and a reconciled intercompany balance. A generalist bookkeeper usually books deposits as revenue and purchases as expenses, which overstates profit in growth months and hides problems until tax time.

Yes. Many aesthetics practices run a management services organization alongside a professional entity because of state corporate-practice-of-medicine rules. We keep both sets of books, bill and reconcile the management fee every month, make sure Due to / Due from accounts net to zero, split payroll correctly between the entities and prepare both returns. Whether you need the structure is a question for a health-care attorney in your state; our job is everything that follows.

We work from the reports your systems already produce — sales by service and product, membership and package balances, gift-card liability, provider production, sales tax collected — and reconcile them to QuickBooks Online every month. That includes aesthetics-specific platforms such as Aesthetic Record, Boulevard, Zenoti, Vagaro, Mindbody, Nextech and PatientNow. During onboarding we map each report to the general ledger so the numbers tie out, and we do not ask you to change systems.

No. Balance Partners is based in Tampa and works remotely with med spas across the United States. Sales tax, payroll and entity rules differ by state, and the engagement scope reflects the states you operate in. Florida practices get the benefit of our day-to-day familiarity with Florida sales tax on retail products, reemployment tax and Sunbiz filings.

Monthly engagements start at $1,500 for a single-location, single-entity practice with clean books. The fee reflects the number of locations and entities, providers on commission, transaction volume and prepaid balances, inventory, the states you file in and whether controller-level reporting is included. You receive a written scope and a flat monthly fee before anything starts; there are no hourly surprises.

Yes. Cleanup is a separately quoted fixed project that starts with a diagnostic of your QuickBooks file, your point-of-sale exports and your payroll records. The usual findings are packages booked as revenue, injectables expensed when purchased, commissions paid on sales rather than redemptions and personal items in the business accounts. Once the history is reliable, monthly service begins from a clean starting balance.

Treatments are not taxable in most states, including Florida; retail skincare, sunscreen and home devices are taxable almost everywhere. We set the point-of-sale mapping so taxable retail is separately stated, reconcile the POS tax report to the sales tax payable account each month, file the returns, and watch economic-nexus thresholds once you ship skincare to other states. In Florida the practice also owes tax on supplies it consumes, such as gloves and reusable instruments, while prescription-only drugs are exempt.

Most practices pay a base plus a commission on service revenue, net of product cost and excluding sales tax, tips and gift-card sales. We recommend paying commissions on package redemptions rather than on package sales, running everything through W-2 payroll, and booking a month-end commission accrual that ties to the provider production report. Injectors are employees in almost every fact pattern; paying them as 1099 contractors to save payroll tax is the most expensive mistake in the industry.

We can tell you what they are once the books are built correctly, which is the only margin worth managing. We report gross margin by service line (injectables, energy devices, skincare, retail), provider cost as a share of service revenue, product cost as a share of injectable revenue, and EBITDA after a normalized owner salary, then compare each month with the trailing three. Our guide on med spa profit margins explains why published industry averages are unreliable.

A profit and loss by service line, a balance sheet with package, membership and gift-card liabilities stated correctly, a deferred-revenue rollforward, a provider production and compensation summary tied to payroll, a KPI sheet, a tax calendar with quarterly estimates calculated from real numbers, and an open-items list that says exactly what we are waiting on from you — closed on a schedule, usually by the tenth business day.

Med Spa Core fits single- or two-location practices doing roughly $500,000 to $5 million a year, with real inventory, memberships or packages, and W-2 providers. The fractional leadership tier — controller, CFO and tax director — fits practices past about $1 million, with two or more locations, or with an MSO alongside a professional entity. We are not the right fit for pre-revenue startups, owners who only want a tax return filed, or anyone shopping on price alone; we will say so on the fit call.

No. Med Spa Core is month-to-month after onboarding, with thirty days' written notice either way. Fractional leadership engagements follow the same terms. Cleanup and catch-up work is a fixed-price project with a defined end. You get a written scope and a flat fee before anything starts, and no hourly invoices after.

Yes. Beyond Med Spa Core we offer three fractional leadership roles, each delivered personally by Jenny Gao, CPA, EA: a fractional controller who owns the close, reconciliations and MSO intercompany books; a fractional CFO who runs the monthly meeting, 13-week cash forecast, budget, KPI dashboard and device, hiring and second-location models; and a fractional tax director who plans entity structure, owner pay, equipment timing, multi-state registrations and quarterly projections. They are scoped after a diagnostic and quoted as a flat monthly fee.

The bookkeeper records what happened. The controller makes sure it was recorded completely and correctly, on a date — the close, the reconciliations, the package liability tied to the POS, the inventory count. The CFO uses those closed numbers to decide what happens next: pricing, provider pay, a device, a second location, a sale. Most med spas have the first, need the second by the time they sell packages, and benefit from the third once revenue passes about $1 million or a second location is on the table.

The right test is specific: ask any candidate how they book a prepaid package, how injectables reach cost of goods sold, how commissions tie to payroll, how retail sales tax is separated from treatments, and who personally reviews the file. Balance Partners is a Tampa-based, CPA-led practice that specializes in med spas, publishes its methods in sixteen-plus guides, works from your POS exports, and is led by a Florida-licensed CPA and IRS Enrolled Agent who reviews every close. Our guide on choosing a med spa accountant lists the nine questions to ask any firm, including us.

Balance Partners, LLC is a CPA-led accounting and tax practice. It is led by Jenny Gao, a Florida-licensed Certified Public Accountant and IRS Enrolled Agent, who reviews every client's work personally. The practice does not provide audit, review, compilation or other attest services; it provides accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll and advisory services.

No. Every Balance Partners engagement is a direct relationship between the practice owner and the firm, and the owner always knows who is doing the work. We do not take overflow, white-label or subcontracted work from other accounting firms, do not sell outsourcing capacity, and do not pay or collect referral fees. If you are an owner comparing firms, ask each one the same question — it tells you who will actually be in your file.